Month: April 2011
The cure may be worse than the disease
Or not, because look at that disease. I’ve posted this image from an 1860-something Albany directory before over on My Non-Urban Life, but it deserves a second look. I don’t […]
Walker’s – for everything
In the 19th century, Schenectady’s main business district was all concentrated west of the canal. And it would seem that most things that were for sale were concentrated in James […]
Again with the steam
Oh, steam! Is there nothing you don’t make better? I’m not sure exactly what they actually milled – perhaps just coffee and spices – at Eureka Steam Mills, which was […]
They didn’t call it the Collar City for nothing. . .
In 1895, you couldn’t swing a cat in Troy without hitting a collar factory.
Bears in the news
Bears in the news? Nothing new. The Cohoes Cataract, 1849, reported on a resolution of the trustees of the village of Cohoes: “Complaint having been made that Wm. H. Bortell […]
Mmmm . . . steam crackers . . .
As I’ve said before, if you wanted to show that your product was the height of modernity in the 19th century, it had to be made by steam. Witness Fred […]
Where the Erie Canal met the Hudson
Once, it might have been the most important transportation intersection in the United States: the spot where the Erie Canal opened into the Hudson River. Here, barges carrying grain and […]
The Albany-Rensselaer Bridge
I don’t have a date for this postcard, which features the first Dunn Memorial Bridge, a lift bridge dedicated August 19, 1933, replacing the Greenbush Bridge. By the opening of […]
We’re proud of our shoddy work!
Not surprisingly, in its heyday the Collar City (and neighboring Cohoes, the Spindle City) generated a lot of waste fabric. But in 1895, very little waste was allowed to go […]